California State University, Fresno will soon be liberated from annoying spam plaguing campus e-mail accounts.

Starting Wednesday, March 16, the campus Information Technology Services will be implementing improved spam filters for all users of the university’s e-mail system: faculty, staff, students and Central Valley Internet Project (CVIP) subscribers.

With the current filters, approximately 75 spam messages per day have clogged campus email in-boxes. The new spam filters, when used at maximum strength, are expected to block almost all incoming spam.

The new filters will use a filtering method known as Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBLs) that will reject messages sent from addresses known to be sources of spam. The filters will also include an updated Web interface for the SpamAssassin service, featuring easier controls to adjust the sensitivity of spam filters and to maintain a “white list” of e-mail addresses for messages that are not spam. As the problem of spam evolves, additional enhancements to the service will be made.

Users of the campus email system will have SpamAssassin turned on by default. Spam filter settings can be adjusted and can also be completely turned off if desired.

More information on the new spam filters and how they can be customized can be found in the March 1 issue of the University Journal. For faculty/staff help pages prepared by the campus Help Desk, click here. For student help pages prepared by the campus Help Desk, click here.

(Copy prepared by University Communications student-intern Jennifer Stapp)

EDITORS and NEWS/PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIRECTORS: Press releases can be downloaded at www.fresnostatenews.com. University Communications also provides releases for news media companies via e¬mail. To be added to the distribution list, send your e-mail address to tomu@csufresno.edu.